


stuck in the past (but seeing the future)

by MrsNoraPalmer



Series: Palmer Family [1]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M, I hope you like them, a very confused nora, it's mostly just tori and nora, post no country for old dads, y'all can't make me stop writing my palmer family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 06:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17401850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsNoraPalmer/pseuds/MrsNoraPalmer
Summary: Post 'No Country for Old Dads', Nora and her father have to travel to 2023 to find something that will help them track the remaining totems, Nora takes the lead on the mission and has some fun in her free time, knowing it's quickly dwindling as Mallus gets stronger, expecting it'll just be a relatively normal day, aside from all the mission nonsense, what she doesn't expect is a small brunette flying into her arms at the park crying and calling her 'mommy'.





	stuck in the past (but seeing the future)

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where I got the idea for this. I really don't. Please suspend your disbelief of timelines and such because I'm bending them slightly.

Nora Darhk knew what was happening to her. She saw the look of pain on her father’s face when he didn’t think she was looking. Mallus was getting stronger. Her time was almost up. She would lay awake at night until she was thoroughly exhausted, thinking of all the ways she thought her life could’ve gone and they all still led her here.

She was listening to her dad ramble about something, saying how they needed to go to 2023 for something that would help them find the remaining totems or some bullshit. Whatever. He was her ride now that they were down to one time stone so she guessed she didn’t really have a choice.

There they were, jumping to 2023. Damien instructed Nora to actually carry out the mission because people would recognize Damien Darhk even seven years later, who was supposed to be dead and Nora sighed. Fine. If she was going to be her dad’s errand girl, she was going to have some fun.

She ended up at SC Jitters, letting herself indulge in being out and not just listening to her father’s incessant world domination speech for hours. Before she could order, the barista smiled brightly at her, almost in recognition.

“Just a hot chocolate for you today, Nora?” The barista asked.

Nora nodded slowly, unsure of how this barista knew her name and order. She paid and quickly stepped out of line, wondering what in the world just happened.

Nora exited Jitters as soon as she got her drink and went for a walk towards the park. She still knew Star City fairly well and knew her time was ticking. She wanted to soak up these last moments of humanity before her father made the world go to hell in a handbasket. She slipped off her jacket, the warmer air and hot chocolate making her a bit warm and settled on a bench, observing the other park visitors. There was a playground far on the other side of the park she remembers her father taking her to. When things were better. Anything was better than this.

She was lost in her own thoughts when she heard wailing. A child crying. Nora’s heart tugged in a way she had never felt before. She felt bad for kids sure, as any decent person would (even though she never considered herself to be a decent person) and never wished her life on them but nothing ever happened to make her heart feel _that_ way towards the sound of a child in distress.

The sound got louder until for some reason her magic connected to the emotions literally charging at her. She’d never felt anything like it as a small crying brunette threw herself at Nora. Nora only had enough time to sit her coffee cup far away and make sure the child didn’t knock her over.

What in the world? Maybe Nora looked like the first trustworthy adult. Maybe the little girl felt threatened but then the second the little girl’s hands touched her cheeks Nora felt everything. Scared, tormented, injured.

“What…”

“Mommy! Sydney was chasing me and then he said that you and daddy loved him more and then I tried to find daddy but I couldn’t find him and I got scared and hid in the trees but then I fell and I heard a scary noise and then I wasn’t in the trees anymore but I saw you! Mommy, I didn’t know you would be here!” The little girl hugged Nora close and Nora was frozen, rooted to her spot.

What should she do? This little girl thought she was her mother. Surely her actual mother was out there probably worried about her disappearing. And whoever her father was was probably equally worried.

“Are you hurt?” Nora could deal with treating a physical injury. The emotional toll this little girl could somehow take on Nora’s body was becoming almost too much to handle.

“Yes, mommy, I scraped my knee.” The little girl scrambled out of Nora’s arms and presented her knee to the older brunette. It was just a scrape. Nothing too bad. Nora got plenty of them playing when she was a kid. Nora looked around for any spectators and she hadn’t drawn attention so Nora gently hovered her hand over the girl’s knee and healed her scrape.

The girl squealed and threw herself back into Nora’s arms and kissed all over her face which filled Nora with a deep seated joy she wasn’t sure she was ever capable of feeling.

“Thank you, mommy!” She grinned and hugged her. Nora took the opportunity to look at the tag on the back of the girl’s shirt to see if parents still wrote initials into the tags and sure enough there in… her handwriting were the initials V.P. Nora sucked in a breath and gently pulled away from the little girl.

“Do you know where daddy is?” Nora asked and instinctively brushed away the curls from the little girl’s face.

The girl shook her head. “That’s why I came to you! I could feel you were near, mommy! With _magic._ ” The little girl whispered the last part.

“Oh magic…” Nora nodded, not sure what else to say.

“Yeah like this!” The girl settled back in Nora’s lap and held her hands together in a ball and a bright yellow glow emitted from her hands and when she opened them, a small flower appeared. Forget Me Nots. Her favorite flower. “Here you go, mommy! Daddy says they’re your favorite and when he gets them for you, you guys kiss.” The girl scrunched up her face in disgust.

Nora nodded, heartbeat beating faster than it had before. Nora gently took the flower and tucked it behind her ear. The girl squealed, the action apparently pleasing her. She studied the little girl, same nose, same hair, same face shape, everything but the eyes seemed to echo Nora. Brown eyes. She looked into the little girl’s brown eyes and almost stopped breathing.

She’d seen those eyes before. Their kindness and purity and hope. She’d seen them first at 15 in SC Jitters as they sang songs from _Oklahoma_. Then as she lay dying in her father’s arms, she had almost taken the life out of those eyes. Then most recently in Berlin when he told her torture wasn’t the answer and devised a plan that nearly worked to save them both. The eyes of this little girl were Ray Palmer’s.

The P in her initials stood for Palmer.

Nora felt warm. Warmer than walking around in a leather jacket and drinking hot chocolate on a spring day. Warmer than feeling angry as a demon would take hold of her body. She looked into the eyes of her future and felt white hot. She couldn’t breathe.

She felt small cold hands press against her cheeks and she focused in on the concerned face of her… of her daughter… her future daughter… and remembered how to breathe.

“Mommy, are you okay? Daddy says you have trouble breathing sometimes and tells me to tell you it’s gonna be okay.”

“That’s what he told you?” Nora asked, surprised she had the ability to speak.

The girl nodded. “Mmmhmm he said ‘Tori, mommy gets scared sometimes and has trouble breathing. If you can put your hands on her cheeks and tell her to take deep breaths in and long breaths out.’ So do it mommy, I don’t want you to be scared.”

Tori. The girl’s name was Tori. Remembering the V she realized it must be short for Victoria. All of her question marks were starting to be filled and her body relaxed. She focused on her daughter’s loving face and sat back against the bench.

“Tori…” she held the girl close, she couldn’t help it. She had no idea how in the world she had a daughter five years from now, maybe Mallus wasn’t freed yet. But how could she have a life? And not one, but two children? She assumed Sydney was a sibling. And with Ray freaking Palmer? She had kids with the annoying optimistic man she and her father had _kidnapped_ how was that even possible? He had been kind and believed in her but surely in five years, less so if this girl was almost that old, he fell in love with her and had children with her.

Nora pulled away. “We have to go find daddy, I gotta go, but I promise you’ll see me at home, okay?” Nora wasn’t sure if her promise would come true, but she made it anyways.

“Okay mommy but you gotta make cookies with me like you promised this morning! Snickerdoodle!”

Nora’s favorite and it looked like it was her daughter’s favorite too. She smiled down at the little girl in overalls and a purple T-shirt. She gathered up her things when the wind kicked up. Tori shivered and stuck herself to Nora’s leg. Nora crouched down and wrapped her jacket around Tori’s small shoulders and kissed the top of her head. “Let’s go find daddy.”

Nora wasn’t sure what the hell she was doing. If she found Ray how would she explain what happened? Would he just assume she was his Nora? Oh, _his Nora_ , that was a weird concept to think about. She didn’t mind it but it was completely foreign seeing as though up until this point she thought she was going to die in a few weeks after spending twenty years as a demon vessel. She let Tori walk ahead of her, adorably swallowed in her leather jacket. She approached the playground and sucked in a breath. There was Ray, she could tell it was him just from the back.

“Daddy!!!!!” Tori squealed and Ray turned around, picking up his daughter and holding her tight, letting Nora’s leather jacket fall to the ground.

“Tori-Bear I was so worried about you.” He was within earshot now and Nora’s heart rate picked up at the sight of this man, who she up to this point found hot but insufferable, be an amazing caring father to her future daughter. Their future daughter. He was standing next to a stroller with two seats, one was a car seat, the other for a toddler. She watched as Ray put Tori down and she ran off yelling a boy named Sydney who she assumed was their son. She did a count. Four. They had four kids and she suddenly felt embarrassed at her four in four fantasy coming true.

Her cheeks flushed and she met the eyes of her _future husband_ which was so strange. “I… hi…”

“You told me about this day, eventually, you didn’t want to admit it was real and had convinced yourself you had dreamed it but in case it did in fact happen, I wanted to preserve the timeline.” He picked up her jacket. “Here.”

Nora waved him off. “Keep it. I’ve got spares and just give it back to me when you see me next.”

Nora started walking away when she heard him speak again.

“I’m going to do everything I can to save you, Nora.”

Nora closed her eyes and turned around, she glanced at their future kids and smiled sadly at him. “You shouldn’t. I’m not worth it. But… they are so… I guess you’ll probably do what you have to do.” She gave him one more glance before walking away, needing to focus on the rest of her mission at hand.

Her father would ask her later why she didn’t have her jacket anymore, she said she lost it. He would ask what took her so long, she bit back and said it took as long as it needed and the mission was done. He would ask why the hell there was a flower in her hair and she would say she found it and thought it was pretty and he needed to mind his own business.

And when Nora Darhk laid down to bed that night, she dreamed of the events she had experienced that day and woke the next morning, convincing herself it was all a dream, and that her fate was sealed as Mallus’s vessel.


End file.
